"
With sentiments of the highest respect,
Your obt. servt.,
George W. Sands.
Frederick City, September 1849.
Dramatis Personae.
Werner--Misanthrope.
Manuel--a cottager.
Albert--his son.
Rebecca--wife to Manuel.
Rose--his daughter.
Spirits.
An aerial chorus.
THE MISANTHRAPE RECLAIMED
A Dramatic Poem
ACT I.
A fountain near the summit of a mountain, from which, through a
deep glen, a stream descends to the valley below. A city seen in
the distance. Time, midnight. Werner standing near the fountain.
Werner (solus).
Eternal rocks and hills!
Mighty and vast; and you, ye giant oaks,
Whose massy branches have for centuries
Played with the breeze and battled with the storm,
He, who so oft has trod your rugged paths,
And laid him down beneath your shades to rest,
Returns to be your dweller once again.
I sooner far would make your wilds my home,
With nought but your rude eaves to shield me from
The winter's cold or summer's heat, than be
One of the hundred thousand human flies
That swarm within yon filthy city's walls.
Here, I at least may live in solitude,
Free from a forced communion with a race,
Whose presence makes me feel that I am bound,
By nature, to the thing I loathe the most,
Earth's stateliest, proudest, meanest reptile, man!
The beauty of a god adorns his form,
The foulness of a fiend is in his heart;
The viper's, or the scorpion's filthy nest
Nurses a far less deadly, poisonous brood
Than are the hellish lusts, the avarice,--
The pride--the hate--the double-faced deceits--
That make his breast their dwelling.
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